Sunday, 26 December 2010

The problem

The problem is I've spent so long stuck in that one infinite moment, I've never considered the rest of it.

In the weeks after the accident I made choices. Conscious choices. I chose to move forward. I chose to survive. I chose to deal with it as best I could. Later.

I just didn't really expect it to be over a decade later.

But here I am and I'm dealing as best I can. It's an... interesting process. Essentially I'm doing two things. Unlocking my 18 year old self, and copeing with the things that were locked away immediately after the accident.

My 18 year old self appears to have moved on. He's grown up quite a bit in the last few years. But I can still see him in what he's become. He plays D&D now rather than WFRP. He still paints minatures. He rewrites the same story (slooooowly) even though he'll never get it published.

He has a full-on beard. It itches. I'd forgotten how much it itched.

Yet he dresses differently. He thinks differently. He's relaxed, which is nice.

I like him. I think I'll keep him.

The problem is, he has an awful lot of baggage. A whole set of memories that are apparently really important and surprisingly enough they're not about the accident. They're about what happened next.

Because contary to popular belief, seeing is not always believing. It's entirely possible to be completely and totally aware that what you are currently seeing is complete and utter nonsense. Complete and utter illogical nonsense. It's also possible to reach out with nothing more than your own willpower and shatter reality to make it real.

This was me, now it's just me.

For various reasons my life went through a period of huge upheaval. But that's over now and I'm taking some time to deal with all that's gone before.

I also made a simple New Year's Resolution. I would do one thing each day that improved my life somehow.

It worked. Life in a way I can't really explain got better. I started to see things in new and more interesting ways, I started to understand who I was and where I was going.

Until one day I realised I didn't have to look inside anymore to define my life. One day I might even explain that. So now I'm looking outward at the world around me.

Every day I'm taking a photo. I'm trying to do it as close to 6 o'clock as possible, but I'm not too fussed if I miss it. I'm trying to make each of them interesting, but if there's nothing there then I'll just photograph what I can see.